TidBITS#453/02-Nov-98
=====================
First Emailer, now HyperCard? Could Apple be pruning the one of
the juiciest fruits of its most talented programmers? Geoff Duncan
examines the history and evolution of HyperCard, along with
reasons for its dilemma. Jeff Carlson reviews a pair of HTML
optimization programs which extract every unnecessary bit from
your Web pages, and in the news, we note Conflict Catcher 8.0.3
and Palm Buddy 1.1, plus announce the Electronic Phoenix Project
mailing list.
Topics:
MailBITS/02-Nov-98
HTML Crunchers Fuel Compression Obsession
Alas, HyperCard!
Copyright 1998 TidBITS Electronic Publishing. All rights reserved.
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MailBITS/02-Nov-98
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**Conflict Catcher 8.0.3 Update Released** -- Casady & Greene last
week released Conflict Catcher 8.0.3, a free update to Conflict
Catcher 8 that correctly labels original items when performing a
Clean-Install System Merge. Version 8.0.3 also manages the
Internet Search Sites folder that stores Sherlock plug-ins, has
better 68K support, and includes additional system merge
information. The download is 1.8 MB. [ACE]
**Palm Buddy Update Adds Converters** -- PalmPilot or Palm III
owners who use Macs can download Palm Buddy 1.1, Florent Pillet's
invaluable utility for backing up and installing PalmPilot files
(see "A New Buddy for PalmPilot Users" in TidBITS-436_). The new
version adds plug-ins for two Palm-based database programs, JFile
and MobileDB, which enable you to install tab-delimited text files
by dropping them onto Palm Buddy's window on the Mac. Version 1.1
also adds the capability to drop folders onto Palm Buddy, enabling
users to restore a previous backup in a single step. Numerous bug
fixes, support for faster serial connections, and plug-ins for
non-Roman languages round out the update. The $20 shareware
program is a 1.2 MB download; upgrades are free to registered
owners.
In related PalmPilot news, a public beta of the new Macintosh Palm
Desktop 2.0v2 will appear in early November, according to Doug
Wirnowski of Palm Computing/3Com. The software is built upon
Claris Organizer, which 3Com bought from Apple (see "Palm
Organizer for Macintosh: Details Emerge" in TidBITS-432_). [JLC]
**Electronic Phoenix Project Mailing List Formed** -- Several
people have volunteered for the Electronic Phoenix Project (EPP),
my proposed organization whose mission would be to adopt orphaned
software. The idea received wide interest, even resulting in an
article in the Dutch newspaper Het Parool. To facilitate further
discussion, I've created an open mailing list. To subscribe, send
email to and to sign off, send email
to . The list is not moderated, so
try to limit discussions to creating and operating the EPP.
(Suggestions for programs to adopt aren't necessary - many have
already been suggested in TidBITS Talk.) I look forward to seeing
what emerges. [ACE]
HTML Crunchers Fuel Compression Obsession
-----------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson
Graphic designers hit a stumbling block a few years ago when the
Web threatened to become The Next Big Thing. It had been
acceptable to pack as much detail as possible into every row of
pixels in a huge image. But designers who took on Web work
discovered that images needed to be as small as possible.
Compression became the holy grail of Web design.
Although this quest led to the creation of a new industry and a
disproportionate number of how-to books, only recently has
attention focused on optimizing the HTML files that make up every
Web site. Two utilities have emerged to shave even more bytes from
your Web files. Mizer, from Antimony Software, and VSE HTMLTurbo,
from Voget Selbach Entertainment, can reduce the size of HTML
files without harming their functionality.
**Don't Byte Me If I Strip** -- Image compression relies on two
notions: either replace repeating values with a shorter
description of those values (known as "lossless compression" and
used in GIF files), or remove unnecessary information without
revealing noticeable degradation (known as "lossy compression" and
used in JPEG files). (For an overview of image compression, see "A
Closer View of Web Graphics" in NetBITS-007_.) You can't apply
lossless compression to HTML files because Web browsers aren't
designed to read, decode, and display compressed text files. That
leaves lossy compression: strip out unnecessary information but
leave the content and HTML tags intact.
So what's expendable? Without trying to say what's worthwhile on
the Web, there are unnecessary elements in a typical HTML file.
Line breaks, tabs, and spaces that aren't used in the page content
are the most obvious; they consume space despite being invisible.
Although HTML purists (and validation programs) may object, most
Web browsers can correctly interpret pages without some elements,
such as quote marks around tag attributes (like ) and tags added by some HTML editors (like
).
You could also attack comment tags (which don't appear in a Web
browser but are used to embed notes, represented as ). However, some Web servers add preexisting content from
templates or perform an action dictated by commented commands,
making this option potentially dangerous.
You could do all this by hand if you had the time, but since no
one does, instead check out the aforementioned utilities to have
the work done for you. The stripped files look awful without the
tabs, line breaks, and spaces that make the text easy to read.
That's why the creators of both Mizer and HTMLTurbo recommend HTML
compression happen just before uploading. That way, the smaller
files reside on the Web server, while your editable copies remain
on your hard disk. Apply necessary updates to your local files,
then replace the server files with new optimized copies.
**Getting Wiser with Mizer** -- To process a file using Mizer,
drop it onto Mizer's application icon. You end up with three
files: the optimized HTML file, a backup copy of the original, and
a log file reporting the amount of compression achieved. You can
modify those and other options by launching the program directly
and choosing Preferences from the File menu. Mizer also includes a
setting called Tag Optimization that removes closing tags such as
, , and